Latest / The 47 Morning Update with Ben Ferguson / Trump & Vance Plot Senate SAVE Act Showdown plus Big Tech Cost GOP Millions in Fundraising

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Trump & Vance Plot Senate SAVE Act Showdown plus Big Tech Cost GOP Millions in Fundraising · The 47 Morning Update with Ben Ferguson

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  Speaker 1: They're always saying it's too complicated.
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  Speaker 2: Too complicated.
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  Speaker 3: It's not complicated anymore.
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  Speaker 1: They'll come up with some other reason because they don't
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  Speaker 1: want to have you. They don't want to have it
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  Speaker 1: be easy. But it is easy because you can get
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  Speaker 1: everything now that you need in just one simple swipe.
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  Speaker 1: So nobody will have any excuses. We must pass and
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  Speaker 1: now can pass in theory very easily the Save America
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  Speaker 1: Act because it takes.
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  Speaker 1: The number one excuse away from me.
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  Speaker 2: You're listening to the 47 Morning Update with Ben Ferguson.
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  Speaker 3: Good Wednesday morning. Nice to have you with us on
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  Speaker 3: the 47 Morning Update. And we've got two big stories
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  Speaker 3: for you. First up, J.D. Vance says he and President
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  Speaker 3: Trump have war game plans to pass the Save America Act.
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  Speaker 3: So what does that actually look like? And who is
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  Speaker 3: continuing to hold back this bipartisan legislation? We'll explain that
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  Speaker 3: for you in a moment. Up next, you may be
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  Speaker 3: shocked to find out just how much power Google and
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  Speaker 3: Microsoft have politically. How are they stopping Republican candidates from
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  Speaker 3: raising money? By putting those emails into the spam filters
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  Speaker 3: of your email account. Costing hundreds of millions of dollars
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  Speaker 3: in fundraising from GOP and Trump candidates. We break down
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  Speaker 3: the shocking new study. Before we get to that, on
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  Speaker 3: October the 7th, 2023, Israeli firefighter Danny faced a nightmare
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  Speaker 3: no parent should ever endure. A terrorist attacked his community.
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  Speaker 3: He and his wife sheltered in their safe room. Just
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  Speaker 3: yards away, his daughter and son-in-law were trapped inside their
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  Speaker 3: home as it burned during the horrific attacks on that day.
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  Speaker 3: There was nothing he could do to save them. Danny
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  Speaker 3: has dedicated his life to rescuing others. Yet in the
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  Speaker 3: midst of unimaginable grief, he stepped forward to help evacuate
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  Speaker 3: survivors and care for his shattered community. Today, he continues
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  Speaker 3: helping rebuild. His story reminds us that behind every headline
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  Speaker 3: is a family, a mother, a father, a son or
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  Speaker 3: daughter whose life mattered. That is why thousands of churches
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  Speaker 3: across America are joining the Flags of Fellowship movement, started
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  Speaker 3: by the International Fellowship of Christians and Jews. Each flag
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  Speaker 3: planted as part of this powerful movement honors a life lost.
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  Speaker 3: Each flag stands against hatred. Each flag declares to the
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  Speaker 3: world that Israel is not alone. Join believers across America
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  Speaker 3: in this powerful act of remembrance and solidarity with Israel.
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  Speaker 3: Learn how you or your church can make a difference
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  Speaker 3: at joinfof.org. That's joinfof.org. It's the 47 Morning Update, and
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  Speaker 3: it starts right now.
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  Speaker 2: Story number one.
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  Speaker 3: There are a lot of people that are asking the question,
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  Speaker 3: what is going to happen before the midterms on the
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  Speaker 3: Save America Act? Overwhelmingly, the majority of Americans, in a
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  Speaker 3: bipartisan way, something we don't get to say very often,
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  Speaker 3: support the Save America Act. And what is the Save
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  Speaker 3: America Act? It's pretty simple. You have to be an
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  Speaker 3: American citizen. You have to show proof of ID before
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  Speaker 3: you're able to vote in our elections. It is securing
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  Speaker 3: our elections. And common sense would say this makes sense.
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  Speaker 3: In fact, there's countries all over the world. Yes, all
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  Speaker 3: over the world. where this is normal. It's not abnormal
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  Speaker 3: to actually show that you understand how things are going
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  Speaker 3: to work in your elections, that they are safe, that
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  Speaker 3: they are secure. Well, Jenny Vance, the vice president, said
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  Speaker 3: in an interview that he and President Trump have, quote,
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  Speaker 3: war game to plan to take control of the Senate
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  Speaker 3: floor in order to pass the Save America Act. Vance
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  Speaker 3: made that comment in an interview that was released on Tuesday.
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  Speaker 3: The Save America Act, as the White House described it,
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  Speaker 3: ensures only American citizens decide American elections. It includes required
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  Speaker 3: valid identification before registering to vote in a federal election.
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  Speaker 3: And then proof of citizenship. And then limits the use
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  Speaker 3: of mail-in ballots with exceptions for illness, disability, military service,
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  Speaker 3: or travel. Now, you look at that and it seems rational.
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  Speaker 3: This is exactly why it's bipartisan overwhelming support. Yes, I'll
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  Speaker 3: say it again. Republicans and Democrats agree on the issue. Now,
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  Speaker 3: long a priority for President Trump, the SAVE Act has
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  Speaker 3: languished in the Senate due to unified opposition, not only
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  Speaker 3: from Democrats that do not want to have free and
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  Speaker 3: fair elections, they want to have elections they can control
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  Speaker 3: and manipulate. And then there's the rhino Republicans that hate
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  Speaker 3: Donald Trump more than they love this country that they're
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  Speaker 3: supposed to be serving or their constituents. Now, in the interview,
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  Speaker 3: Vance said one scenario they've discussed is whether or not
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  Speaker 3: he has the authority to take over as chair and
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  Speaker 3: fire the Senate parliamentarian. He said he has the authority
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  Speaker 3: to do so. But then four or five or maybe
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  Speaker 3: 10 Republicans said, would then vote with Democrats to overrule
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  Speaker 3: the new chair. Quote, there is no shortcut. I think
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  Speaker 3: our people want to think the parliamentarian is the problem.
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  Speaker 3: The parliamentarian is a bureaucrat. The problem is we have
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  Speaker 3: a number of Republican senators who vote more with Democrats
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  Speaker 3: than their own party. And that is the issue, is
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  Speaker 3: what J.D. Vance declared. He said if 50 GOP senators
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  Speaker 3: and the vice president stick together, They could fire the parliamentarian,
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  Speaker 3: get rid of the filibuster, pass the Save America Act,
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  Speaker 3: and even more. Quote, the problem is not who's in
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  Speaker 3: the chair. The problem is four or five Republicans who
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  Speaker 3: are going to stand with the Democrats. We have war-gamed
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  Speaker 3: this to every detail, and I wanted to do this
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  Speaker 3: a few months ago. He went on to add that
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  Speaker 3: he and President Trump have obsessively thought through how to
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  Speaker 3: get Save America passed. Vance then decided to go on offense,
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  Speaker 3: naming those four Republicans who would vote with Democrats to
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  Speaker 3: stop the legislation. And the worst part is it starts
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  Speaker 3: with Senator Mitch McConnell. That's right. Senator Mitch McConnell, the
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  Speaker 3: man who's supposed to be the Republican and a leader
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  Speaker 3: of the Republican Party in the Senate, would be one
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  Speaker 3: of the no's. And then there's others who are angry
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  Speaker 3: that the president wasn't more helpful in the reelection campaigns
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  Speaker 3: or even went against them. One of them is Senator
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  Speaker 3: John Cornyn. The Republican rhino from Texas that's now out.
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  Speaker 3: Tom Tillis, the Republican from North Carolina. And Lisa Murkowski,
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  Speaker 3: the Republican from Alaska. Quote, we're interested in winning the battle.
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  Speaker 3: And that means replacing mediocre Republican senators with good Republican senators,
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  Speaker 3: Vance went on to say. Over the summer, Vance posted
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  Speaker 3: on X, quote, election integrity is not a partisan issue.
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  Speaker 3: It is an American issue. Let us unite and pass
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  Speaker 3: the Save America Act and ensure in a free and
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  Speaker 3: fair election is protected. Now, in an interview and a
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  Speaker 3: discussion with Breitbart News, Senator Ron Johnson, the Republican from Wisconsin,
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  Speaker 3: also said it's Democrats who won't vote for it. You know,
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  Speaker 3: we're all voting for election integrity. We're all voting for
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  Speaker 3: voter ID. Democrats won't. And the only thing, you know,
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  Speaker 3: you can get upset about is, you know, the Republicans,
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  Speaker 3: as we don't have the votes to overcome the filibuster.
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  Speaker 3: Another Republican senator, Utah Senator Mike Lee, called the chamber's
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  Speaker 3: frequent recesses a lost opportunity this year, saying all year long,
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  Speaker 3: we heard we're going to get the Save America Act
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  Speaker 3: when we have time. Realizing it would likely take a
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  Speaker 3: few weeks, Lee said, we waited patiently. And while fully
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  Speaker 3: funding DHS and addressing other priorities, expecting to return to
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  Speaker 3: it when time allowed. It's now August, he said at
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  Speaker 3: the time. And we've already taken more recess weeks this
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  Speaker 3: year than I can count. So here we are, the
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  Speaker 3: president and the vice president are making it clear. They
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  Speaker 3: are trying to do everything they can to get the
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  Speaker 3: SAVE Act passed. But it's clear the enemy on this one,
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  Speaker 3: oddly enough, is not the Democratic Party. They, we know,
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  Speaker 3: are against actual elections that have integrity. They want to
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  Speaker 3: be able to fix elections. They want to be able
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  Speaker 3: to Well, slam the ballot box with voter registration that
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  Speaker 3: makes it clear that you're not even an American. And
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  Speaker 3: they also want to make sure that they can do
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  Speaker 3: things like carpet bomb ballots for mail-in voting. That is clear.
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  Speaker 3: And so then you look at these four Republicans. You
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  Speaker 3: look at them and you say, why would you do this?
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  Speaker 3: And it's pretty clear. They hate Donald Trump more than
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  Speaker 3: they love this country. They hate Donald Trump. So much
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  Speaker 3: that they're willing to go against the will of their
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  Speaker 3: own constituency who support this bill overwhelmingly. And the only
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  Speaker 3: way to describe that is, well, this way, Trump derangement syndrome.
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  Speaker 2: Next, story number two.
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  Speaker 3: You may not realize just how hard it is for
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  Speaker 3: Republicans to raise money right now when big tech is involved. Yes,
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  Speaker 3: the deck is stacked against us in such an unfair way.
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  Speaker 3: It's truly unbelievable. A newly published study now estimates that
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  Speaker 3: Republican fundraisers lost $ 117 million last year after email providers,
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  Speaker 3: chiefly Google, Microsoft, and Yahoo, inappropriately flagged GOP fundraising messages
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  Speaker 3: as spam while allowing Democratic fundraising emails to go through
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  Speaker 3: directly into your inbox. The New York Post reports that
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  Speaker 3: the study authored by Dr. Cameron Ellis of the University
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  Speaker 3: of Iowa and Dr. Lars Powell of the University of
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  Speaker 3: Alabama used his itemized Federal Election Commission, FEC, donation records
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  Speaker 3: to separate first-time donors from repeat donors across the Republican
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  Speaker 3: platform when read and its Democratic counterpart at blue. Then
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  Speaker 3: they tracked how the donations move during two stretches of
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  Speaker 3: spam filtering last year. The first stretch ran from June
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  Speaker 3: 30th of 2025 when GOP consulting firm Targeted Victory told
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  Speaker 3: Google that WinRed fundraising emails were landing in spam. Through
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  Speaker 3: September 15th, 2025, when Google dropped a spam blacklist called
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  Speaker 3: Serbal that the researchers say had been improperly flagging the messages.
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  Speaker 3: During that window, spam filtering cut first-time WinRed, that would
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  Speaker 3: be the Republican donations, by 75% across Gmail, Outlook, and Yahoo.
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  Speaker 3: The second stretch affected only Outlook ran from February through
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  Speaker 3: April of last year and saw first-time WinRed, again, Republican donations,
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  Speaker 3: drop 83%. Now, together, the two periods cost Republicans... 172,126
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  Speaker 3: expected first-time donors, which the researchers converted into 117 million
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  Speaker 3: using the on-record FEC data. Quote, it's a pretty big number,
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  Speaker 3: is what Powell told the Post. He said the loss
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  Speaker 3: doubled as a gift to the other side. You can
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  Speaker 3: really think of that as an in-kind donation to ActBlue recipients.
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  Speaker 3: And they're right. If you lose out on $ 117 million
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  Speaker 3: and the other side gets their money they're raising, it
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  Speaker 3: literally is an in-kind donation. It's doubling the impact. Now,
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  Speaker 3: Allison Powell also wrote that a, quote, narrow, linked-level placement
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  Speaker 3: decision by a small number of mailbox providers produced a
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  Speaker 3: measurable and economically meaningful drop in political fundraising for Republicans.
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  Speaker 3: and that the mechanism was observed only because private paired
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  Speaker 3: test evidence actually leaked into public reporting. Powell was upfront
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  Speaker 3: about the limits of studying a system companies keep, well,
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  Speaker 3: making sure that you don't know how it actually works, saying, quote,
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  Speaker 3: we can't read their minds, he said, but pointed to
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  Speaker 3: other evidence pinned down to the cause, saying inbox placement data,
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  Speaker 3: Impaired email tests show when the filtering happened and supported
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  Speaker 3: the WinRed links were the trigger. And that is the
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  Speaker 3: reason why big tech is clearly in the bag for
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  Speaker 3: liberal Democrats. Now, email placement for the GOP, the researchers found,
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  Speaker 3: normalized once Google stopped using it on September the 15th.
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  Speaker 3: So this was done by design. Now, for scale, just
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  Speaker 3: so you know, The RNC, the NRCC, and the NRSC
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  Speaker 3: fundraising totaled $ 377 million combined in 2025. Gmail, just so
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  Speaker 3: you know, has more than 3 billion users. Google, by
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  Speaker 3: the way, pushed back hard. A spokesman said that the
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  Speaker 3: study relies on deeply flawed methodology that fundamentally misunderstands how
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  Speaker 3: Gmail works and called the $ 117 million figure a theoretical
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  Speaker 3: estimate rather than a real-world number. saying quarter span protections
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  Speaker 3: apply equally to everyone, regardless of political affiliation, and we
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  Speaker 3: encourage bulk senders to follow the best practices to reach inboxes.
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  Speaker 3: The spokesman said, adding that people are in full control
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  Speaker 3: of their inboxes. With the power to mark messages as spam,
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  Speaker 3: block senders and unsubscribe at any time. Microsoft, they even
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  Speaker 3: just straight up declined to comment, and Yahoo did not
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  Speaker 3: respond to requests for comment about the story either. Now
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  Speaker 3: this also comes after there was previous reporting that GOP
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  Speaker 3: consulting firm Targeted Victory revealed in 2025 that Google was
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  Speaker 3: flagging conservative fundraising emails as actually dangerous. Let me say
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  Speaker 3: that again. Google was flagging conservative fundraising emails as quote dangerous.
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  Speaker 3: The New York Post reports that a recent memo from
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  Speaker 3: the consulting firm Targeted Victory not only revealed that Google's
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  Speaker 3: Gmail service has been flagging Republican fundraising emails as spam,
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  Speaker 3: but often sending them directly to users' spam folders. The memo,
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  Speaker 3: obtained exclusively by the Post, suggests that this issue has
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  Speaker 3: been ongoing throughout the summer months of June and July.
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  Speaker 3: Targeted Victory, whose clients include prominent Republican figures such as
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  Speaker 3: Representative Steve Scalise, Senator Marsha Blackburn, as well as National
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  Speaker 3: Republican Central Committee, they conducted tests to investigate the issue.
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  Speaker 3: The test involves sending identical emails through Gmail with the
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  Speaker 3: only difference being the inclusion of either a WinRed donation link,
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  Speaker 3: a Republican fundraising link, or an ActBlue link, a Democratic
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  Speaker 3: fundraising platform. The results showed the emails contained WinRed links
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  Speaker 3: were constantly flagged. Yeah, consistently flagged as suspicious or dangerous,
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  Speaker 3: while those with ActBlue links were discovered that, well, they
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  Speaker 3: were delivered without any issues. So this is another example
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  Speaker 3: of just what we're up against going into the midterms.
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  Speaker 3: This idea of lying, stealing, and cheating to win an
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  Speaker 3: election is alive and well and part of the strategy
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  Speaker 3: of the Democratic Party. So get ready, my friends. This
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  Speaker 3: is another example of just how hard it's going to
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  Speaker 3: be come November if Republicans don't get out and vote.
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  Speaker 2: Thank you for listening to the 47 Morning Update with
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  Speaker 2: Ben Ferguson. Please make sure you hit subscribe wherever you're
• 15:49
  Speaker 2: listening to this podcast right now. And for more in-depth news,
• 15:53
  Speaker 2: also subscribe to the Ben Ferguson podcast. And we will
• 15:57
  Speaker 2: see you back here tomorrow.